


on the viability of adding a vape pen to a jaeger (among other things)

by paopuleaf



Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: (thats jaylen), Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, M/M, Mentions of Pre-Fic Major Character Death, Pre-Relationship, ish, mike townsend (is maybe way too far in over his head), you already know what it is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:01:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27284602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paopuleaf/pseuds/paopuleaf
Summary: mike townsend's first simulation drift, first three-way drift at all, and first reallyrealconversations with tillman henderson and declan suzanne. (he thinks they go okay. he's pretty sure they went okay. he has no fucking idea.)
Relationships: Mike Townsend/Tillman Henderson/Declan Suzanne
Comments: 6
Kudos: 27





	on the viability of adding a vape pen to a jaeger (among other things)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cryptidgay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cryptidgay/gifts).



> HAPPY BIRTHDAY KAYLEE !!  
> hope you like these funky boys !
> 
> [i am once again handing out the tillmikelan vibes playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1irq646u4GQ2coTILFoTqz?si=3eRmfEDJQT-vPMqjpgBRjA)
> 
> declan uses he/they, mike n tillman both use he/him, parra uses any pronouns, dreamy she/they, loser he/him, nagomi she/they/it ! jaylen uses she/her !

mike’s not really sure what to expect when getting into the simulation for the first time - a practice drift kind-of-maybe-a-little, but also the first time he’s doing a three-way drift. the concept is a little terrifying, to be honest. parker’s reassured him that it’s not a full drift, just… a simulation of one, for practice, but -

the first time in years. the first time since - 

( _“we could only salvage a couple pieces of it,” loser says, looking up at- what mike can_ barely _recognize as his old jaeger. “it became our first hybrid, sorta. a three-way drift. still piloted by two, since the budget cuts, but…”_

_he trails off. mike can’t stop looking at it - he sees the leg plate where he n’ jaylen had scratched “fight gods” into the metal, late at night. it had taken hours. they had talked about a lot of things - what he wouldn’t give to remember what - and by the time the sun was rising they were both near-passed-out and pitching machine had a brand new set of lyrics in its armor. over the week, other garages had came and went, adding their own additions. something wholly theirs._

_the legs are the same. everything else is almost painfully unfamiliar - from the red paint to the shitty tattoos on the arms. crab themed, too, got a couple crab legs, the arms tapering off into claws. apparently a “garages brand surprise” from parker is there too, somewhere, but who knows what that means._

_deep breath. in/out. can’t turn around from the gate now. “who’s piloting it?”_ )

tillman henderson and declan suzanne walk into the sims room, declan still wearing those hot-pink cat ear headphones and the stupidly puffy jacket while tillman kicks at the tile with too-tall platforms. mike’s - kind of in awe, actually, but like, in the incredulous _man how do these guys have so much confidence_ way. “- and loser was like, no, tilly, we’re not adding a vape pen to the pitching machine, and i went -” 

“i think not adding a vape pen is unepic,” declan interrupts. to tillman’s credit, he doesn’t even flinch, just nods along and keeps going, gesturing sharply. all of mike’s awe is gone (can’t say he’s not fighting back a grin though. it should bother him more that they’re seemingly not taking this seriously, maybe, but everyone finds levity somewhere. that somewhere is just... adding a vape pen to an old jaeger.)

( _god._ )

“townsend’s waiting,” dreamy interrupts, and he finds himself the abrupt center of attention between two people he’s worked weirdly well in-sync with - two people he doesn’t know _shit_ about beyond their reputations (and god, do their reputations proceed them.)

“i-” floundering. definitely floundering. “adding a vape pen would be- pretty- poggers,” and oh god that is _possibly_ the stupidest thing that could’ve come out of his traitor mouth, he wants to melt into the floor -

wait. wait. wait a fucking minute - declan’s eyes are _lighting up._ tillman’s rolling his eyes, but he’s got this dumb little smirk, and okay, maybe mike didn’t fuck this one up as monumentally as he thinks he did. “laaaaame,” tillman says, sliding towards the helmets on the back wall. “ready to fuck some shit up?”

“today’s simulation exercise is destroying baltimore!” declan slides off their headphones before shoving the helmet on quick, wincing. 

“and also the fake kaijus,” parra interjects, “but yeah, fuck baltimore. see how many negative points you can rack up before loser notices. this is mostly a practice to get you used to, y’know, all the shit that comes with three-way drift, and the updates to pitching machine. me n’ dreamy have got it handled out here.”

mike puts on one of the helmets himself - it’s lighter, than the old ones, less of a solid weight, but he can see better, and it balances itself out. (only a _medium_ amount of anxiety, as a treat.) “so, is- chasing the rabbit. memories involved in all this?”

“not particularly,” dreamy informs, “just a cursory level. think of it like… hm. surface level. you can still get lost, deeper than you’d prefer, but ‘chasing the rabbit’ has no real consequences outside of a failed sync. not like in the real jaeger.”

“ _cool._ ” mike’s gonna try his hardest not to get lost in - whatever the fuck’s gonna get pulled up, then. 

“scared?” tillman calls, a taunt, and declan kicks him in the shin, one arm already connected. “what was that for-”

“remember our first drift? can’t say shit.” tillman flushes down to his chest at declan’s words, scowling. a story mike’ll have to pick up, sometime, if he doesn’t see it in the drift. “c’mon, mike, it’ll be epic and cool. you _gotta_ see what pitching machine’s picked up.”

mike opens his mouth as he hooks himself up, closes it. opens it again. “i’m looking forward to it,” he manages, and - he’s surprised to find the words ring true. “what’s the- uh, what’s the lowdown on that?”

“you’ll see when we’re in there, dumbass.” 

the simulation boots up with a call from parra, and then his vision is flickering, and -

( _sipping from the same bottle of shitty, shitty beer, laughing about some dumb joke one of you made over a game of mario kart and you think you could probably kiss him, if you wanted, if he wanted, but you settle for leaning forward and letting your head rest on his collarbone and letting him ramble about nothing at all-_ )

don’t chase the rabbit -

( _loser’s telling you that you’ve gotta find a drift partner, lame, and none of these losers are really doing it for you, but then the last one steps up with his dumb headphones and dumb jacket and nearly kicks your ass - not that you’d admit it - and next thing you know you’re sitting knee-to-knee planning out strategies, weapons -_ )

don’t - chase the fucking rabbit, mike, _focus_ -

( _she’s standing next to you and god, you should be retreating, but you’re all too close to the breach, can’t go back now, mike, you can’t go back now, and there’s a kaiju and she’s blink/blink/blink gone-_ )

snap. the sync lines up as mike tears himself away from the memories, and then he’s _in_ it, or something like it -

the interior of pitching machine is unfamiliar, but the feeling of it - _instantly_ recognizable. he glances to the projections of declan and tillman next to him, and they move as one, lifting one of the arms to slam it down on an unsuspecting business building. “fuck yeah!” tillman and declan cheer, and mike can’t help but echo. 

another move - he thought it’d be harder, or slower, with three, but they’re _faster,_ somehow -

_isn’t it wild?_ declan chimes in, and fuck, that’s one bit of the drifts he forgot about. 

_l-m-a-o_ , tillman spells, in his mind, what the _fuck_ , snickering as pitching machine slams into another building. _cringe loser can’t even remember to think pointedly._

_it’s been a while._ mike’s surprised at the bite there, but tillman just laughs, and he gets the feeling that this happens a lot. _so when do the kaiju usually come in?_

a mental shrug. pitching machine grabs onto a building with its claws and tears it to shreds. terrifying, how much damage these things could do if they got turned against everyone too. _whenever the hell parker decides, usually. she likes to switch it up._

speak of the devil. flickering into existence at the edge of the city is a huge deer kaiju - codename bevan, category 3 - immediately goring its way through one of the neighborhoods. it opens too/too/too many mouths and _screams._ mike can see declan shudder in the corner of his vision, a full body affair, before they -

reach out and - 

slash. 

one of the claws sinks into the kaiju’s side, tearing through fur/flesh. they jolt as one when an antler jams into their side - they take that antler and _snap_ through it, like it was just a _stick._ the rush of it all makes mike grin. (he knows the other two feel the same without even looking, this time.)

“you wanna try out that garages surprise?”

( _an echoing chorus of yes/yes/yes -_ )

“‘course.” 

pitching machine latches onto a bar on its back and _pulls,_ and mike watches as it wields a fucking - _guitar axe,_ settled between two of its claws. the blades on the sides are flickering plasma. 

it slices through bevan’s side like _butter._

“holy shit,” mike says, and that awe is back (he can feel tillman and declan’s smug/excitement), because _holy shit!_

somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew that these were weapons made for category fours, the theoretical category fives, wouldn’t feel quite this _powerful_ , but all he can see is the kaiju folding under their ( _their_ ) assault and the ending of the simulation.

“holy shit,” he repeats, hands shaking as he takes off the helmet.

tillman grins, slinging an arm around declan’s shoulder. “how was that for a test run?” they ask.

“good. really good.” it’s all a rush. mike’s - exhilarated. (he thinks back to loser’s question for a moment and… yeah. he’d rather die in a jaeger, like this, than die on that wall. definitely.) for the first time - maybe since getting there - he thinks that maybe they _do_ have a real chance at stopping all this. he tries to find the words again. comes up short. “ _really_ good.”

“you didn’t fuck up as much as i thought you would,” tillman says, and declan mouths ‘it’s a compliment’ when he looks away. _okay. yeah, sounds about right._ “data analysis and all that nerd shit’s gonna take a minute, you wanna come back to the room with us?”

mike points to himself.

“yeah, you, dumbass. c’mon. we’ve got beer and snacks, n’ all that shit.”

“i, uh, okay?”

might as well?

-

mike finds himself squished between tillman and declan on the ratty couch in their room, one hand wrapped around the neck of a beer and the other trying ( _failing_ ) to play mario kart one-handed. none of them are doing good, actually. it’s up in the air whether that’s the norm or the alcohol. “so are you two like, uh-” he waves around the bottle in some kind of gesture, “a thing?”

“we’re just chillin’.”

“gay people aren’t real,” tillman says, very decisively, and declan snickers, “so no. we’re bros. gotta kiss the homies goodnight, all that shit.” 

“wow. can’t believe i’m not real.” 

“welcome to the club penguin, dude.” declan lifts their controller in a mock cheer, and mike bumps his against it. “saw some stuff on your end, too.” the controller freezes. mike freezes. they blink, before shaking their head. “don’t get all stressed ‘bout it, y’know? i mean, like, you have every right to be stressed about it, but not about us, ‘cause tilly doesn’t give a shit and i won’t bring it up-”

“okay,” mike says, quiet, “okay. you just- uh. that’s. what happened last time.”

tillman huffs. “we gathered that, loser, declan’s just being dumb. something something ‘full transparency.’” 

huh. mike doesn’t know what to say to that - so he doesn’t. just shrugs. declan makes a small ‘oof’ sound as tillman lays across both of their laps, and that’s okay too. might as well happen. “when we go back to the breach, none of us are doing that shit,” tillman declares. “riv to her but we’re different.”

mike’s chest hurts, tight/tight/tight, but he’s got one hand on a beer bottle and one hand on a remote and a weight in his lap and the pressure is enough to ground him. “you promised me a drift story, declan,” because nobody’s ever said he was _good_ at changing the subject. “i wanna hear about tillman being a clown.”

declan perks up, leans to the side (they’re against his shoulder, now), mario kart long since abandoned. “so we’re getting into the jaeger, right, and this is before- before luis and parra and the other nerds did the simulation, so it was- bigass pitching machine. plasma weapons, crab claws, the whole nine yards-” tillman groans, and they slap their hand over his mouth. “so we get in there and- hey, don’t lick my hand, asshole!”

the couch protests as declan recoils, wiping his hand off on tillman’s jeans, and the bastard’s laughing. mike snags his fingers in tillman’s ponytail and pulls it out in one swift motion, and the laughs turn to one noise of protest. “wh- fuck you! how’d you do that!”

“uh, practice? you’re not the first dick with a ponytail i’ve had to deal with.” the last one was jaylen. he’d built up a veritable collection of hairties by the time of the last mission. “so how bad did tillman fuck up drifting?”

“ _bad,_ ” declan emphasizes, and tillman scowls. his ears are red. “so, you know, all of kennedy’s ‘don’t chase the rabbit. if you chase the rabbit you get your right to breathe revoked,’ and we’re like okay, we’re not gonna chase the fucking rabbit, and in tillman’s words-”

“‘i’m not fucking stupid,’” tillman says, begrudingly, with the cadence of someone who’s told this story entirely too many times before.

_hah._ “so tilly says that, and nagomi’s like-” a deadpan expression, voice, “ _ok tillman_ and we’re in our suits and we’re ready to go and- the drift starts! and i’m just kinda vibing, thinking like, okay, this is pretty epic, and then i blink and tillman’s gone to the world, and we’re about to slice another jaeger in half with the crab claws.”

“that’s- fucked up,” mike says. how else are you supposed to respond to that? like actually? “guessing that didn’t happen, though?”

“mcdaniel would’ve fucking _killed_ us, are you kidding?” tillman throws his hands up, nearly smacking him in the face, and declan snickers. “oh yeah, you can laugh, but it would’ve gotten your ass too!”

“she seems scary,” mike says. he hadn’t worked very closely with her before - stationed in different places - but it and its team was a force to be reckoned with, from what he’d heard. “what got you messed up that bad?”

declan cackles, burying their face into the couch for a moment. “that’s- that’s the best part,” he wheezes, and it’s a little contagious, because mike can feel himself grinning, “it- he got lost in the fistfight that got him permanently banned from all of baltimore’s con locations.”

“ _what._ ”

a quick look down to tillman confirms it. he looks like he’s trying to bury himself in mike’s shirt. “fuck _off,_ suzanne, i’m going to throw you into the bay-”

“nooo, don’t throw me into a pool of toxic waste, you’re so sexy and also my only other drift-compatible partner ahaaa-”

“you only love me for my assets-”

“ _ass_ -ets,” mike mumbles, and declan’s laughter gets louder. tillman’s giving him the smuggest look, shoulders shaking from repressed snickers, and hm. maybe melting into the floor is still an option. 

can’t say he isn’t still looking forward to drifting with them again, though. 

**Author's Note:**

> this is . a oneshot based off a Longer Fic i want to write for this whole au because pacrim grabbed me by the throat and god do i have so many ideas  
> hope you enjoyed !! go follow kaylee at [here](https://twitter.com/kayleerowena) on twitter because she fucking rules


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